I don’t know of any but I didn’t want to rule out the possibility.
I mean, it was the Balkans.
Understatement of the fucking century.
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Is it also okay to post about history books as well in this thread? Because I have one about contemporary US history that I like sharing around.
The title is a bit misleading, but it’s about the under-discussed history of Christian domestic terrorism in the US, specifically about Christian Identity theology. I have yet to finish it, because I’m an easily distracted reader, but the chapter I’m on is about one of the plots to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr. and it goes in depth in discussing the connection between seemingly separate white extremist groups and supposedly “lone wolf” terrorists. It also talks a lot about how willfully inactive the FBI was at the time in dealing with white Christian extremists while simultaneously targeting Civil Rights leaders. It’s a HEAVY topic that is unlike everything else in this thread, but a topical one for understanding the problem that a lot of Americans face currently.
On a completely different note, I’m sure most people know of historical accounts of women cross-dressing as men, often during war. The way most of these accounts are framed are tales of women setting aside the inconvenience of femininity to find liberation in an assumed masculine identity, and then return to living as women as soon as their duty is done. This is not the case for Amelio Robles Avila. Amelio was a transgender man who joined the Mexican Revolution, working his way up to colonel and eventually being able to change his birth certificate to properly reflect his identity. I first learned about him a few years ago while taking a course on the Mexican and Cuban revolutions in Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, but sadly there doesn’t seem to be too much else around the web about him.
Of course it is! The thread is about education people (or at least that is how I envisioned it) so I don’t see why books would be banned! Will update OP about it.
Also I have heard of Secret Jihad but have yet to read it, certainly sounds interesting.
I genuinely like it and it’s good educational material, though whenever I read it, I tend to read it more critically than I do other history books I’ve read. I’m not sure why, but when I’m reading it, I find myself playing backseat professor going, “this is good and I can see that he’s building up to a grander point, but I think the argument could be stronger here.” That’s not to say it isn’t well argued, I just personally feel like a lot more emphasis could be added in some areas.
No, I get that; I did that myself with some of my college text books. Some of them made really poor points, and one of the autobiographies I had to read for a Colonial US class I had a real issue with, as the person writing claimed that they were part of a trial, while all the court documents for the case don’t mention her or her testimony. I tried to point out to my professor that, since there were no supporting sources we can’t be sure she didn’t just make it up, but decided against getting into a full-on argument with my college’s History Chair.
Otherwise was a pretty interesting book!
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This is not the case for Amelio Robles Avila. Amelio was a transgender man who joined the Mexican Revolution, working his way up to colonel and eventually being able to change his birth certificate to properly reflect his identity.
Interesting! I hadn’t heard of him, before. A similar (but much earlier) case is Catalina de Erauso who ran away from a convent and became a mercenary in South America (back in the days of the Spanish Empire). He became a itinerant adventurer and was eventually forced to reveal himself as a runaway novice nun to a bishop to avoid arrest. The fact that he still had an intact hymen (kind of a cheat, as he preferred women) combined with the tales of his exploits impressed them enough that he wound up getting a pardon from the king, and since he’d never made his final nun vows the Pope released him from that obligation and gave him dispensation to dress as a man.
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Since I know where this is going, let’s discuss Pope Joan, the female pope! She probably never existed.
Also known as Pope John the VIII, legend says that Joan was convinced by a young paramour to dress like a man so that they could study and learning in the ways women were forbidden at that time. Being a great scholar they quickly surpassed everyone who taught them, and they climbed the ranks of the clergy until they reached the top: the goddamn Pope. It is said that their reign came to an end when Joan/John gave birth during a procession, and that Joan/John died shortly after either from complications from the birth or from murder, and the child dying soon after birth.
There are several ways we know this is likely false, main ones being that no mention whatsoever of the events pops up for several hundred years after; the dates where they supposedly ruled, 853-855 CE, is right in the middle of two other pope’s rules, which are very well documented.
And finally, and I think they most damning piece of evidence, no one used this against the Catholics. The Eastern Orthodox Church was still part of the same church during this time, yes; the schism would not occur for several hundred years from these events, but that does not mean that everything was hunky dory between East and West. The Patriarch during these events, Photios I, was not known for his love of the Popes and the Vatican and would have hurt himself leaping onto this scandal in an attempt to discredit the Vatican. (The Patriarch I refer to is the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, aka the Archbishop of Constantinople, aka super fucking important dude in Eastern Orthodoxy holy shit).
So where does the legend come from? As far as I can tell, smear campaign by the Protestants. Joan is mentioned a few times here and there but it isn’t until the 1500s that the story really takes off and OH HEY LOOK the Protestant church was formed around the same time, with the two groups trying to convert followers away from one another! Sure would have been a fine time for propaganda about how dumb your theological opponents are, ya?
In conclusion, there most likely was never Pope Joan as we know them. It is true however that some priests at the time were discovered to have been women in disguise for various reasons, and despite what Pokemon teaches us you can’t catch all of them, who knows? Maybe some other Popes we do know existed were born women.
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Yeah, there’s a lot of accepted “history” that started as smear campaigns - Rasputin’s reputation as an evil mastermind (which began as a way to indirectly attack the Tsar’s German wife during World War I without being guilty of treason), and the infamous reputation of the Borgias (based largely on a highly sensationalised book by Dumas) are the two that jump to mind. One of the golden rules - assume everyone’s got an angle.
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Speaking of smear campaigns, did you know that John Quincy Adams likely contributed to the wife of Andrew Jackson? He found out that Ms Jackson had been married before she married (at the time) General Jackson, but the divorce procedures had never been complete, so she was technically married to two men at once, and thus was an adulterer. Adams spread the news far and wide, and although Jackson did win the election the same broke his wife’s heart, and she died from a stress-induced heart attack. Jackson went on to be known as one of, if not THE most cruel, angry and harsh US President, leading to unknown amount of deaths and atrocities committed against the indigenous people of North America.
He also threw what was essentially a kegger for his Inauguration party, almost beat an assassin to death with is cane, tried to give back a bullet to the man who shot him in a duel decades earlier (the other man was now a state senator, and told Jackson to keep it, saying [paraphrased]"No, you keep it. It has stayed with you longer than it was with me), and at his funeral his parrot was kicked out because i would not stop yelling obscenities.
Andrew Jackson: Fun to learn about, would slug the fella if I ever met him!
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So you know is terrifying? Starvation! Know what else is terrifying? Hungry Emus! You ever wonder what would happen if you combined the two? That is a very good (if rather odd) question, and we know the answer because of the Great Emu War of 1932!
The stage is set in rural Western Australia, where many veterans of WW I have been encouraged to grow wheat, with promised subsidies from the government to assist keep the price of the wheat at a level where they could survive (they of course, did not receive the subsidies.) Anyways, just as it was all going to come to a head, a new problem appeared: Emus! Vast flocks of them had migrated away from their traditional grounds as food had become scarce there, and were now snaking on the poor framers crops! So now, the farmer’s couldn’t buy any food as their crops were next to worthless, but they can’t eat their crops as there is a giant angry bird over there who will kill them if they try to scare them off!
So the Australian government took action, and dispatched the Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery (or at least 3 soldiers from it, led by Major G.P.W. Meredith) to exterminate the invading birdies as the government had other things to worry about, i.e. the rise of Fascism in Europe and the sudden pressure on their borders from Japan, who has started looking at the surrounding islands rather intensely… The “Seventh” brought with them two light machine guns (Lewis Guns if anyone wants to know the specifics) and 10,000 round of ammunition to exterminate the birds, but soon found that was not nearly enough.
Accounts vary as to the casualties on both sides, with some settlers claiming that several hundred Emus died, to the a report that suggests it was only 50. There were three major battles, the first won by the emus as few of the birds could be shot; the emus had scattered at the first few shots so few could be hit. The second battle was more of a success for the “Seventh,” in that they were able to ambush the birds and were winning until the Lewis Gun they brought jammed after only the 12th dead Emu, forcing a retreat. The final major battle occurred when the other Lewis Gun was mounted on a truck to be used to chase down the Emus, but sadly the Emus were faster and better equipped to deal with the terrain, and the ride was too bumpy to allow for the gunner to shoot anyways. The casualties on the human side was thankfully only 2500 rounds of ammunition and some very hurt pride.
After these three battles, the “Seventh” pulled out defeated, to the disappointment of the farmers who had requested aid. Sir George Peirce, the Senator that ordered the cull was nicknamed the “Minister of the Emu War” by one of his peers, and the Emus were allowed to continue their rampage until many of the birds were finally slain by bands of Emu hunting mercenaries out to collect a bounty no i am not making this up, I couldn’t if I tried. When news reached England of the cull, many conservationists protested, saying it would be a shame to wipe out such a rare bird, to which the farmers-turned-mercenaries flipped them the bird (har har) and went back to making a living so they could eat.
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